Pentahydrate Sodium borate. Borax works in many personal care products such as cosmetic creams, skin lotions, hair shampoos, dyes and gels, bath salts and denture cleaners. Used as a water softener and laundry product, like baking soda has many cleaning uses. Is a mild alkali, used in combination with beeswax, that forms a kind of soap that is used as an emulsifier in creams (water in oil emulsions). The ratio of beeswax to borax is 16:1 to 20:1. When combined with guar gum and water it forms a gel. Found in recipes for laundry and other soaps, used in combination with sodium carbonate in commercial bath salts and as an alternative to automatic dishwasher detergent. Also used as an insecticide. There are different kinds of borax, for most uses it doesn't matter which one you use. We used to carry the tetraborate/tetrahydrate, but are now stocking 5 mol granualar pentahydrate, which is also anhydrous. Tetra means there are 4 molecules of water, penta is 5, deca is 10. So if your formula is based on the tetraborate borax, you would use 1.45 times as much of the pentahydrate or 1.9 times as much of the decahydrate. Canadian cosmetic regulations state concentration of borax in cosmetics should not exceed 5%. Appearance: White granules crystalline. Common Name: Borax Pentahydrate, Borax 5 mol Granular. Chemical Name: Di- Sodium Tetraborate Pentahydrate (Na2B4O7.5H2O). Purity: 99.90% Minimum. B2O3 : 47.75 % Minimum. Na2O: 21.41 % Minimum. SO4 : 70 ppm CI : 50 ppm Fe : 10 ppm Structure: crystalline. CAS No.: 12045-88-4 Bulk Density: 992 Kg/m3 Specific gravity: 1.810 Solubility in water: 1.5 % (@ 20 °C) pH: 9.24 (1.0 % solution (@ 20 °C) Odor: Odorless. Molecular Weight: 291.30